“It’s heartening that this one particular artist, using the same basic tools that film directors have had at their disposal for the past 80 years, is making movies like La mujer sin cabeza, that feel defiantly her own, radically specific, and thrillingly new. Chris Wisniewski (Reverse Shot)

“Lucrecia Martel has established herself as one of the most observant, powerful and urgent filmmakers working today. That opening of La ciénaga would be memorable coming from any filmmaker. But, in this case, given that it accompanies a debut effort, it is nothing short of astonishing.” SF360

“Like a tale by Nabokov or perhaps an early short story by Ian McEwan – La niña santa and its elusive strangeness reverberates in the mind long after the credits have rolled.” Philip Bradshaw (The Guardian)

“The 10 year gap between Darwin’s Nightmare and We Come As Friends is extreme because, first of all it’s a way of life and it’s a long haul – the thinking process and money and financing … But this gap was extreme because I had to get rid of many very threatening forces against me after Darwin’s Nightmare. I couldn’t really believe what was happening to my life. The film became very successful after it won a bunch of awards and got nominated for an Oscar and all that. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I suddenly I got this exposure so all these wrong people saw my film. These are powerful people- gun runners in Africa and so on. They decide to go after not only me but also people in the film. They were persecuted and imprisoned and had death threats and lawsuits from very dubious groups of people who had a lot of money. So my life was literally upside down – I had to get people out of the county.” (Hubert Sauper @ Twitch Film)

“I think what you really search for, as an artist, is to produce a piece of art or film that makes you experience life. It’s life experience—two hours of pure life. And in life you see a lot of things that don’t have subtitles, and don’t have explanations. You just see them and you don’t see the context, and the whole parcel of it makes you grow up and not be a child anymore, gives you a whole picture of the world. If it does that kind of thing in a concentrated way, in a movie, then I think that is what I’m looking for.” (Hubert Sauper @ Film Comment)

“First of all, I am European and not many Europeans go to Africa unless they bring the word of God and want to rape the country and steal the land – this is the unilateral kind of relationship of the last hundreds of years. My latest film is about that: how do you decide to destroy, dominate and possess other lands and cultures. The psychology of it is the theme of We Come as Friends – and this is the most profound lie in our civilisation.” (Hubert Sauper @ Senses of Cinema)

“I am a bit anarchist-like getting to places, and a joker, striking up relationships with people and getting close to situations. In We Come as Friends the key questions were: “How to get to Chinese oilfield? How to get to the Libyan airbase?” There is no way to get there, unless you fall from the sky. So I had to build this airplane to get there. But, of course, apart from being a mode of transportation, it is like a Trojan Horse, like a bluff.” (Hubert Sauper @ Senses of Cinema)

“Darwin’s Nightmare and We Come as Friends are very conceptual films. People may think it is just this guy who travels with the camera and just switches it on when things happen. But alot of what is shown is premeditated – in the sense that I know from many years of experience that if I find myself in a radio studio with a corrupt politician, he is going to say something that is going to be great for the film.” (Hubert Sauper @ Senses of Cinema)

What follows is a short text and an extract of the photographic exhibition she is preparing of her experience there.

“I had the great pleasure of being able to stay at the Bélvèdere du Rayon Vert in Cerbère. A whole week when one is allowed to exist. Not only is it a privilege to stay at the hotel, which is such a fascinating place, but also one has the freedom to create or simply recharge batteries.

Cerbère is an interesting town, especially as I arrived outside of the tourist season, it’s quiet but it also has a sense of a place that is a ghost from the past. The railway track is impressive, as is the station. When one is from a place that has no borders, like an island, it is a special feeling to walk across a border, but it also reminds one of those who had to walk across a border as the only means to survive, in order to escape from something.

Life has its own pace there, through the mountains or by the sea, often almost both things at the same time. Apart from the photographic work that I did , I was able to sit in the hills, looking across the bay to two countries, almost simultaneously, while I crocheted my kitchen curtains. The memories of my time will be preserved within me to the grave.” (YRF)

I dreamt, a few weeks before leaving Iceland, that I had been in Cerbère, on a summer long holiday.
I decided not to read or look anything up before my arrival and to retrace those places in my dream.
Here are some images from my dream and my “re-encounter” with Cérbere.

All the photographs were taken on an analogue camera and where developed by Yrsa Roca Fannberg.
Some of the photographs were taken on film that expired well over 30 years ago.